What course? What is the objective? What would victory look like? Is victory even a goal? Freedom certainly isn’t — we’ve already overseen the adoption of a Sharia Constitution. Is the goal to defeat the Taliban? No, Biden said the Taliban were not the enemy. Is the goal to establish a stable parliamentary democracy? That will never happen in a million years. No amount of American money, no show of American good will, no outpouring of American blood will ever turn Afghanistan into New Jersey. Enough already: Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.
“Allen: U.S. to stay the course in Afghanistan,” by Lolita C. Baldor for The Associated Press, March 19:
WASHINGTON “” The U.S. must stick to its strategy in Afghanistan, including the planned withdrawal calendar, over the next several months despite recent setbacks that have tested America’s relations with the Afghans, the top U.S. commander for the war is telling Congress.
Gen. John Allen is heading to Capitol Hill Tuesday for the first time since the Koran burnings and last week’s shooting spree by a U.S. soldier inflamed anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan. The incidents spawned attacks against U.S. forces and prompted Afghan leaders to demand that American troops pull out of local villages and rural areas.
The upheaval has fueled Congressional opposition to the war, insuring that Allen will face lawmakers who are bitterly divided and increasingly skeptical of the administration’s strategy.
In frank testimony prepared for delivery to the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Allen argues that while the last few months “have been trying,” the coalition and its Afghan allies have made progress and degraded the insurgency.
“This campaign has been long. It has been difficult, and it has been costly. There have been setbacks, to be sure, we”re experiencing them now, and there will be more setbacks ahead,” Allen says. “I wish I could tell you that this war was simple, and that progress could be easily measured. But that’s not the way of counterinsurgencies.”…